Monthly gap from savings
$0
Amount your portfolio needs to cover
Estimated spending by retirement phase
Go-go years
Ages 62–75, typically
$0/mo
Slow-go years
Ages 75–85, typically
$0/mo
No-go years
Age 85+, typically
$0/mo
Why the split matters: essential expenses are the floor you cannot easily cut. Discretionary expenses are the flex — the first place to trim if markets turn down or spending needs to be reduced. Knowing this line in advance gives your plan real resilience.
This calculator provides a planning estimate based on your inputs. It does not account for taxes on withdrawals, inflation over time, healthcare cost growth, or one-time expenses (home repairs, vehicle replacement, long-term care). Not financial advice.
How this retirement budget calculator works
This calculator splits your expected retirement spending into two categories — essential (housing, food, healthcare, transportation) and discretionary (travel, dining, hobbies, gifts) — following the framework most financial planners recommend, including Fidelity, Schwab, and BlackRock. It then compares your total budget to your guaranteed income sources (Social Security, pension, part-time work) to show the monthly gap your investment portfolio needs to cover.
A worked example
A retired couple with the default values in this calculator:
Sample monthly budget
Essential expenses$4,350/month
Discretionary expenses$1,450/month
Total budget$5,800/month
Guaranteed income (Social Security)$2,400/month
Gap from portfolio$3,400/month ($40,800/year)
If markets have a bad year, this retiree's first move isn't to touch the $4,350 essential floor — it's to trim from the $1,450 discretionary bucket. Cutting travel and dining by 30% during a downturn reduces the portfolio draw by roughly $435/month without threatening housing, food, or healthcare. That flexibility is the entire point of separating the two categories in the first place.
The go-go, slow-go, no-go framework
Retirement spending isn't flat — it changes shape as you age. This framework, introduced by CFP Michael Stein in The Prosperous Retirement and later supported by David Blanchett's 2014 research in the Journal of Financial Planning, breaks retirement into three phases:
- Go-go years (typically the first decade of retirement): The most active phase. Travel, hobbies, dining out, and discretionary spending peak here — you have the health and time to do everything you planned for.
- Slow-go years (typically the middle phase): Discretionary spending naturally pulls back as energy and interest in extensive travel decline. Total spending often decreases even as some costs (healthcare) begin rising.
- No-go years (typically the final phase): Spending narrows to essentials. Discretionary spending drops significantly, but healthcare and potentially long-term care costs rise, sometimes sharply.
A flat spending assumption across all of retirement — assuming the same budget from 62 to 95 — tends to overstate costs in the middle years and can meaningfully understate healthcare costs late in life. This calculator applies a simplified version of this framework to illustrate the shape, though your actual trajectory depends on your health, family history, and personal spending priorities.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I budget for healthcare in retirement?
According to Fidelity's 2025 Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate, a 65-year-old individual may need approximately $172,500 in after-tax savings to cover healthcare expenses throughout retirement — this includes Medicare premiums, supplemental insurance, and out-of-pocket costs, but excludes long-term care. For a couple, budget roughly double that figure. This is a lifetime estimate, not an annual one — divide by your expected retirement length for a rough monthly planning number, and revisit it periodically since healthcare costs tend to rise faster than general inflation.
What percentage of my pre-retirement income will I need?
A commonly cited rule of thumb suggests 70-80% of pre-retirement spending, though actual research shows a wider range — studies of real retiree spending find totals ranging from roughly 55% to 80% of pre-retirement levels, varying significantly based on whether the mortgage is paid off, health status, and lifestyle choices. Rather than relying solely on a percentage rule, building a bottom-up budget like this calculator provides is generally more accurate for your specific situation.
Should I include one-time expenses in this budget?
This calculator focuses on recurring monthly expenses. One-time or irregular costs — a new roof, vehicle replacement, a child's wedding, major home renovations — should be budgeted separately as a lump-sum reserve rather than folded into your monthly number. A common approach: maintain a separate contingency fund for these irregular costs, sized based on your home's age, vehicle condition, and family circumstances, reviewed and replenished periodically.
How does this connect to my withdrawal rate?
Your annual portfolio gap (shown above) is the number that determines your required withdrawal rate. If your gap is $40,800/year and your portfolio is $1,000,000, that's a 4.08% withdrawal rate — right at the traditional 4% Rule threshold. Use the withdrawal rate calculator to see how long your portfolio lasts at your specific gap amount, and the bucket strategy guide for how to structure withdrawals to protect against sequence of returns risk.
What if my essential expenses alone exceed my guaranteed income?
This is a meaningfully different situation than needing your portfolio for discretionary spending — it means your baseline survival costs depend on investment performance, not just your quality-of-life spending. If your essential-only gap is large relative to your portfolio size, consider strategies to increase your guaranteed income floor: delaying Social Security claiming (see our Social Security estimator), purchasing an annuity for a portion of essential expenses, or adjusting your retirement timeline. A larger guaranteed income floor reduces the risk that a market downturn threatens your basic living expenses.